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“I am honoured to coach Roma and I feel responsible. Players have to feel responsible and I hope Dzeko does. I hope he can be decisive like Salah was in the first leg. I am giving him (Dzeko) this responsibility.”

Roma pulled off a huge shock in the last round by knocking out Barcelona after coming from 4-1 down in the first leg and now need to repeat the heroics in Rome.

They have not conceded in any of their five Champions League games this season at home and have scored eight, including three each against Chelsea and Barcelona.

Di Francesco did his best rabble rousing speech to whip up his players and the red-hot atmosphere as he clearly believes they can pull off another incredible comeback.

Di Francesco is backing Dzeko to star in the second leg (Image: Reuters)

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Di Francesco said: “In terms of the Barcelona match, I would do a copy and paste like you would on Microsoft Word word but in the minds of the player and physically, in order to compete against Liverpool, we need to raise the bar against Liverpool with physical effort.

“Then comes attitude, approach to the game and the fact we need to try and score an early goal and to have the fans behind us even more.

“From a motivational point of view, we have the desire to complete this comeback and put everything on the pitch and try and do something great and massive.

Di Francesco on the Liverpool bench (Image: EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

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Liverpool

“If you want to score goals you cannot sit back. You cannot drop deep. We have to accept the risk of conceding on the counter attack but we have to try and limit it as much as possible. We need to score three goals.

“We need to make something clear. We are about to play a Champions League semi-final semi-final in front of 70,000. What, you expect us to sit back?

We expect a fighting team a team who can put everything on the pitch. I expect this to happen.

“We made something special against Barcelona. It is a massive achievement for the club but I don’t like to settle and be complacent. We have to try and to do our best. Our ambition is to go to Kiev and we must believe we can make it.

Liverpool have one foot in the Champions League final (Image: Getty Images Europe)

Liverpool face Roma on Wednesday night (Image: Liverpool Echo)

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“However, I am trying to prepare for this match like any other match. I am very satisfied with what we have done so far but we need to raise the bar even more. I will try to make the players aware that we can make something big.”

Roma midfielder Radja Nainggolan added: “It was difficult against Barca and we need it so we need to believe in what we do.

“It will be more difficult than against Barca because physically they are a better team and the only thing we need to try is to try and score three goals and not concede.

“I am afraid Liverpool players were more consistent. In some parts we did well at the beginning and end but not the whole 90. At Barcelona, we did it for large spells of the game.

"We cannot afford to repeat the mistake by conceding the goals. We know what we have to do.”